CRSS 4660 / 6660
William Miller
Fall 03
This is a senior undergraduate/graduate (MS) level course emphasizing principles and practical experience in chemical analyses of soils, sediments, rocks. and water, with particular emphasis on environmentally important contaminants such as nutrients and metals.
Lectures are held W and F; as there is no textbook and most material will be presented via lecture, attendance is manditory. Reading material designed to supplement and reinforce lecture topics will be passed out in lecture or reserved at the Science Library.
Laboratories are where much of the practical information in the course will be learned; attendance is manditory unless prior arrangement is made. No makeup labs will be held. Laboratory handout will outline the procedures to be used, and any hand-ins or reports should be turned in for credit by the deadline noted on the lab. Most lab reports will be briefly summaries of methods and data collected during the lab. Late labs will be penalized, and not accepted if more than 2 wks. late. Labs will be held in Rm. 3406 Plant Sci. Bldg. unless otherwise noted. Field trips and trips to remote labs will have transportation provided.
Projects will be as performed as a class; a topic to be chosen by the instructors will be announced, and data collected on a sample set throughout the semester. A final project report will be written by each student, due the last class meeting. The report will be a formal summary of sampling, analysis, QA/QC, and interpretation of data collected during the semester (some of which will have been previously summarized in weekly lab reports). Details will be provided on formatting, etc. towards the end of the semester.
Grading will be done on a fixed 90 (A)-80(B)-70(C) scale. Exams will be short answer/essay/computation questions. While the lecture and lab are theoretically separate courses for CRSS, a single grade will be assigned for both courses for each student. Final grades will be computed as follows:
Note: grad students will be assigned additional tasks in lab, and will be expected to provide leadership during the lab sessions, as well as higher quality lab reports and exam answers.